Blood Bank
by Blinded Moon
Summary: Theodore hides behind his guilt, sorting bags of blood at St. Mungo's. Will a visitor who'd been haunting his past bring peace of mind? HP/TN slash


Author's Note: This is my first new original fanfic in over three years. I've recently returned to embracing my favorite rare slash pairings, so there are more of stories like this to come that I've already begun. This story was inspired by the song Blood Bank by Bon Iver, though it's not necessary to know the song to understand the fic.

Blood Bank

We met in the basement. I was working at St. Mungo's on the floor between the atrium and the morgue, preparing organs for donation but mostly sorting donated blood in preparation for transfusion. Cosmetic procedures gone wrong and magical creature wounds were unfortunately the top reasons for my employment, as the relative peace of the last four years had kept much of the major injuries from occurring at all.

I entered healing due to my guilt, or so my therapist says. I do my job meticulously and solitarily, taking lunch breaks outside in Muggle London and sleeping in a closet-sized flat in Diagon Alley.

If loneliness exists, I don't acknowledge it.

But I do acknowledge excitement. I let it in with caution. I move slowly. I let men take me home but I make them hold me. They need to put their arms around my waist like an old-fashioned dance partner, kiss my neck letting me feel their cheek, threshed with stubble. When I leave, I keep secrets, which is why I'm always allowed back.

I keep the magical windows dark, which is how I first saw his face. The reflected visage was undeniable, but it did shock me for just a second.

"Theodore Nott," he said.

"Harry Potter," I said.

He was bulkier than I remember him being. I'd seen him from a distance a time or two in the last few years, but I mostly recognized his newly mature look from the constant stream of photographs in the Daily Prophet.

There was a silence where we both expected the other to begin. I won, because he started, "So you've been working down here—"

"Cut the shit," I said. "I know what you're doing here."

His face became more serious, and signs of weariness began to show. But I look at men's faces frequently, and weariness wasn't the only emotion playing out. It was why I didn't tell him why he was here, because he was going to tell me and he was going to lie.

"I'm sure you've heard from your little friends," Harry said, biting through his words. "If you think that the surveillance is going to stop, you're mistaken."

"You know he's gone forever better than anyone, Harry." I was playing into his game, setting up the pieces for him to play into mine.

"Not everything's gone. Crimes against Muggles persist, and if you think we're not taking any of these mysterious killings seriously—"

"It's over, Harry." My voice was desperate but my mind was not. "There's no stay-behind, no Werewolf or Gladio, nothing left but fading skulls on a wrist that we all wish we could forget!"

There was a silence before he smirked. "Werewolf? Gladio? You read Muggle war histories?"

"And so what if I do?"

The smirk remained on his face as he walked closer to me, looking at the bags.

"Have you donated?" I asked.

Now his face changed, sliding slowly into some sort of beautiful disastrous despair. I enjoy seeing movement in men. Their pub confidence transforms into smooth desire followed by longing as I dress and Apparate home. There's something so beautiful about that last stage, the need to have more, the need to give back, even if it's just a few dark drops of blood.

"I can't," he said. "My blood…I don't want to risk it."

"It's tainted," I said.

He snapped. He grabbed me at the shoulders and shoved me, my back hitting a high metal table. Beakers and glasses sang in high pitches as they fell to the ground. "Don't you _ever_ fucking say that to me."

I had to keep my cool. I took a deep breath. "Harry, you're not here to check up on me. You're not here to make sure I'm not up to some evil deed." I'd known since I saw his face in that reflection. "You're here to fuck."

It's the moment that always happens, the silence when a tiny part of me feels I've made a grave mistake but the stronger part keeps eye contact, keeps calm, keeps strength.

I realized quickly that I was right. I was always right. Deep down, I resented it, once wanting someone to surprise me with something I didn't know yet. I wanted to feel something new in the basements and dark flats where I live my life in constant self-punishment.

In the next minute, as if by Legilimency, he gave me the thing I desired. He approached me and cocked by head upward with his left hand, his right snaking around the small of my back bruised by the table. He kissed me so softly, and he took my ear between his teeth and whispered, "I'm not here to fuck. I'm here to make love."

And he was, and he did. For the first time since the war I felt forgiven, brought into the side of the light, saved.

He was engaged to be married and I knew that. When he finished, he left with barely a word. It was all I deserved, the smallest bit of redemption, dripping alongside a broken plastic blood bag.


End file.
